Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Ahmadinejad hailed in Middle East

What is a bit surprising is that Ahmadinejad is popular even among Sunnis throughout much of the Middle East. His opposition to the West and willingness to stand up against Western pressure and also his defence of Islam transcend sectarian divisions it seems. Media attempts to demonise Ahmadinejad in the West and some of his own pronouncements assure that he is dmaned by liberals and conservatives alike in the US.

Ahmadinejad hailed in Middle East

The president of Iran, who has made a point of defying the West and Israel, has won admiration even among Sunni nations.By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer September 24, 2007 CAIRO — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a flinty populist in a zip-up jacket whose scathing rhetoric and defiance of Washington are often caricatured in the Western media, has transcended national and religious divides to become a folk hero across the Middle East.

The diminutive, at times inscrutable, president is a wellspring of stinging sound-bites and swagger for Muslims who complain that their leaders are too beholden to or frightened of the Bush administration. Ahmadinejad, who arrived in New York Sunday ahead of a U.N. General Assembly meeting, is an easily marketable commodity:a streetwise politician with nuclear ambitions and an open microphone.

"I like him a lot," said Mahmoud Ali, a medical student in Cairo. "He's trying to protect himself and his nation from the dangers around him. He makes me feel proud. He's a symbol of Islam. He seems the only person capable of taking a stand against Israel and the West. Unfortunately, Egypt has gotten too comfortable with Washington."

Ahmadinejad's appeal is especially strong in Egypt, where he is compared to the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose bold, yet doomed vision of pan-Arabism in the 1950s was also aimed at stemming Western influence. In the minds of many Egyptians, Iran's quest to expand its nuclear program despite United Nations sanctions is similar to Nasser's confrontation with the British and French over nationalizing the Suez Canal.

What's striking in Ahmadinejad's case, however, is that the leader of a non-Arab Shiite nation has ingratiated himself with the Middle East's predominantly Sunni Arab population.

In praising the Iranian president, Arabs quickly navigate around historical religious animosities and present-day fears that Iran is undermining Sunnis in Iraq and elsewhere. They prefer to speak of how Ahmadinejad is a rallying voice for Islam at a time the region is bewildered by its powerlessness to fix Iraq, Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"He's a brave man," said Tayseer Ibrahim, an employee of the Egyptian Education Ministry, who was hurrying toward the subway the other day. "He's standing up to the U.S. He could have been intimidated after what happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, but he's not. The Iranian people must love him a lot. Hopefully, our Arab leaders will see that you can defy the West and nothing will happen to you."

Munther Farrah, who sells nuts and chocolates in Amman, the Jordanian capital, said he and other Sunnis are troubled by Iran's Shiite theocracy. "But Ahmadinejad is still liked," he said. "We are with him as long as he's against Israel and the U.S."

The passions are decidedly different in New York, where Ahmadinejad is scheduled to address the U.N. on Tuesday in an effort to block another round of sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program. Some American politicians have said the Iranian president should be turned away. Public pressure has forced him to cancel a visit to Ground Zero.

His U.N. appearance comes as Iran, which the U.S. regards as a state sponsor of terrorism, balances two diplomatic tracks: It has moved to soften international criticism of its human rights record by allowing three Iranian American academics and writers accused of spying to leave the country. On the other hand, it has intensified its defiance of the U.S. and Europe after the French foreign minister suggested that the world prepare for the possibility of war between Western nations and Iran.

The static of threats and counter-threats has enhanced Ahmadinejad's brand of populism, which stands in vivid contrast to the detached styles of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah II of Jordan and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. All three U.S. allies regard Iran as a dangerous enemy, most notably over Tehran's support of the militant groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But they have also borrowed a bit from Ahmadinejad's script by criticizing Bush administration policies and the bloodshed in Iraq.

The governments in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have undercut media freedom and suppressed political dissent, and are viewed by some of their people as corrupt and ineffectual in addressing economic and social problems. Iran runs its own version of the omnipresent, repressive state, but Ahmadinejad's intense distrust of the U.S. and hatred of Israel have elevated him to mythical status for the frustrated Arab mechanic, taxi driver or lawyer seeking a pure, forceful message.

The sentiment is similar to the respect won by Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006, and Hamas, the radical Palestinian party that seized control of the Gaza Strip in June. Both were credited with tenacity and portrayed as underdogs battling against larger enemies. This type of resolve, along with Iran's pride as a sovereign state, echoes through Ahmadinejad's speeches and asides.

"It is more of a scream that reflects the incapacity of both the Arab regimes and Arab peoples to achieve anything on the regional level," said Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political analyst with Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

Ahmed Taher, an Egyptian doctor, credits Ahmadinejad for pursuing nuclear technology, which Tehran says is for civilian use, but the U.S. suspects is for weapons.

"It's beyond doubt that Ahmadinejad's popularity surpasses any other leader in the Middle East," Taher said. "We shouldn't blame him for seeking nuclear weapons. Israel has them. It will be more balance for Muslims if we have them too. Israel is much more dangerous to the world than Ahmadinejad."

Some of the Iranian president's admirers, however, are concerned about his provocative nature, bellicose quips and coyness about Iran's nuclear intentions. Comparisons to Nasser's triumphs and defeats limn the edge of conversation about the Iranian leader: Nasser was victorious in the Suez crisis, but a decade later his miscalculations led to humiliating Arab defeat by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War.

"He's too audacious and this hurts him," said Reda Kheshein, an accountant scanning headlines at a newsstand in Tahrir Square in Cairo. "He doesn't have the right to say he wants to destroy Israel. He needs to be reasonable, not risky. Unfortunately, we suffered from riskiness in the past. Look at Nasser, he made a very risky decisions. We don't need any more martyrs."

Other Arabs wonder about Ahmadinejad's strategy in a region where political theater and hyperbole often mask quieter, behind-the-scenes diplomacy. They suggest that the Iranian president, who seldom displays shades of nuance and is given wide latitude by Iran's ruling religious establishment, is as spooky as he is inspiring.

"He has a sense of belonging to the Muslim world. He always stands by Muslim nations," said Hussein Ali, a guide waiting for a bus. "But I don't like his inability to unify his own people and his insistence on developing nuclear capabilities that would be dangerous to the whole world. But we need his strong Islamic voice to protect us from the West."

Ibrahim Sufa, a Jordanian shop owner, said Ahmadinejad is shrewd and calculating when it comes to spin.

"He's good. I feel he's really a moderate. He talks in the extreme, but he acts with restraint," Sufa said. "If America hits him, the whole region will go on fire."

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

Noha El-Hennawy of The Times' Cairo Bureau and special correspondent Ranya Kadri in Jordan contributed to this report.